


non est ad astra mollis e terris via: A Collection

by daretogobeyondtheunknown



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, disconnected works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-08-08 17:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daretogobeyondtheunknown/pseuds/daretogobeyondtheunknown
Summary: there is no easy way from the earth to the stars





	1. Chapter 1

Something about the piano soothes her.

Maybe it is the feel of the keys beneath her fingers – cool and smooth. Or perhaps, it is the way each vibration pulsates through the pads of her fingers, down to the bone beneath.

As the string of notes reverberate off the grim walls of her prison, not a stitch of fabric to dampen the sound, Sam exhales a shaky breath.

Alex had thought it might aid her “recovery”, to have something to focus on that isn’t the thousands of tests, the long hours of training or the way her heart races when she catches sight of her reflection and sees only Reign – _Worldkiller_. There is a reason why the walls to her prison are barren and the smooth reflective surface to the piano have been roughed away.

“What are you playing?”

Sam instinctually shifts, Ruby melting into her side.

At first, everything about Ruby terrified Sam. She was just so _human_ and Sam wasn’t – not anymore, anyways. And all it would take to hurt her baby girl…

“-mom?”

“Sorry, baby,” Sam whispered with an apologetic smile pressed into the corners of her lips, “Nothing special. One of those silly songs Kara insisted on showing me.”

Maybe it is the way each note vibrates that calms something within her. Or maybe, it is the way Ruby leans in eagerly, attempting to mirror Sam’s own fingers on the keys, features scrunched with attentive focus. 

As Ruby bursts into cheers of jubilation, arms squeezing tightly about her midsection, Sam knows.

The piano is not truly what soothes her. Rather, it is the way it allows her to simply exist with Ruby in a manner that feels _almost_ human. The piano is the conduit: it washes away the blood Reign has stained her hands with; it allows her to interact with her daughter; and it brings a flutter to the heart of the chocolate eyes watching over them.


	2. Chapter 2

Time feels like this intangible entity – illusive as it slips through her fingers like grains of sand.

It ages the faces of those she loves and eventually brings an end to them. There is no cure, Reign thinks solemnly, as the light diminishes in the eyes of another and whispers of love linger in the air. If there were, a cure that is, Reign thinks she just might use it, selfish as that might be. To be selfish is to be weak, and while Reign truly isn’t weak, sometimes she wishes she was. At least then the dull ache and sentimental attachment might be somehow justifiable.

But she isn’t – weak – and the attachment truly becomes the nuisance Reign wonders how many more lifetimes she will have to spend to finally be rid of it.

“This is the last,” Reign murmurs, the rocky canon and the open air her only witnesses.

*

“What does it feel like, to share a body with my mom?”

The curiosity is interwoven with pain and the tremor is unmistakable: Ruby is afraid but so very inquisitive. On the other side of the barrier she sits, knees tucked into her chest, looking every bit the small child Reign knows she is.

She has never truly seen Ruby before, odd as it might sound, but that doesn’t stop the tug in her gut or the strain of her muscles as they seek to rebel against her control and reach out and reassure Ruby that everything will be alright. Reign knows, none of it ever will be, because she and her vessel are one and the blood that cakes her hands will never be scrubbed clean by her other half. No, nothing will ever be alright, and Reign wonders if those tremors of fear and marks of pain will stay until Ruby’s last breath. Time, Reign supposes, will tell and soon enough she will know the answer to her unasked question.

“There is a curtain. One cannot see the other side but, on occasion, sounds filter through and emotions bled into existence,” Reign explains, humouring _her_ small child with an answer, “It aches.”

But why she does – humour the small girl with an honesty Reign has never humoured anyone – Reign cannot place and the frustration boils under her skin.

“You never knew it was me then,” Ruby states in the least succinct of ways, undoubtedly caught between the desire for the woman her body resembles and the fascination of the possibility that two minds might share one body.

“No. I have always known you.”

From the moment Ruby was conceived, growing within the swell of her vessel, Reign remembers all of it. She remembers the fear and the loneliness that would swathe her vessel as tears streamed down her cheeks. She remembers the jubilation upon Ruby’s birth, her first gurgles and steps. She remembers the trepidation when Ruby had her first fever and every cold, scrape and bruise that followed.

Reign cannot explain how but she has always known.

“How-“

Back pressed into the cold cement slab of her latest prison, Reign finds herself wondering the same. Because, Reign thinks, she was never supposed to know Ruby, not the intimate details of her life or the beat of her heart. But she does, and Reign does not understand.

In a moment Reign swears is not of her own volition, she sighs, casting her gaze towards the stars she knows lie thousands of miles above.

“I do not know, little one.”

*

Ruby’s presence was a mistake Reign hears as Agent Danvers sweeps in, hair disheveled and cheeks flush.

The young child laments, pleading to stay, that Reign is not what she seems. It makes her chest clench and the corners of her eyes burn. Something about the way Ruby’s voice quivers, Reign thinks of memories she was never meant to see, between a mother and a daughter.

A maternal instinct Reign does not have thrums through her veins and it takes every ounce of concentration to refrain from springing to her feet, fists driving into the barrier with enough force to send tremors to the surface.

“Don’t you _ever_ talk to her.”

The agent plays tough poorly, her frame trembling like a leaf in the wind and her eyes red brimmed. She seeks to protect, to fill the gap of a mother who cannot protect her own. It disgusts Reign, the way she clings to a role that is not hers to fill. Or perhaps, it is Reign that disgusts herself, the way her body yearns to cradle _her_ small child and whisper soft assurances into the crown of her hair.

“Afraid she’ll like me better than you, Agent?”

But Reign is not weak and the response she crows is strong – _powerful_. She is Worldkiller and some little girl and her phony mother do not make her heart clench or her muscles weak.

*

In the dark Reign feels most at ease.

Part of it, Reign hates to admit, is familiarity. For years she had been relegated to the farthest recesses of her vessel’s mind where sight did not exist. In the darkness, she sat, waiting for the moment when it would be right, to emerge into this world.

But her vessel had been stronger than Reign initially anticipated and part of it, Reign thinks, has far more to do with Ruby than any true strength. The way her heart beat felt as Reign leaned in, ear pressed to the thick dark curtain, dampened the blood lust that thrummed in her veins. Reign remembers, back pressed into the folds of the curtain, how it felt safe, secure and far too comforting.

The destruction of the world could wait.

Why it shifted, Reign does not know.

*

Reign is up in an instant.

The air is trembling. Something is coming and, Reign realises, no one knows.

It is dark, the calm before a storm Reign knows will gut humanity from the inside out.

Reign hears them – the steady heart beats of _her_ child, a useless agent and a far too sentimental power suit. It is alarming how deep her desire runs to protect them and Reign wonders how much of it ebbs from the other side of the curtain and how much of it stems from some growing parasitic form of weakness.

Regardless of its origin, Reign knows what she must do.

*

_No!_

The blood that coats her hands is warm and tacky.

Reign can’t remember his name – _Agent Chase_ – or anything about him really – _a wife,_ _two children, a newborn on the way_ – but she will always remember the way his blood makes her veins hum and her vessel scream.

“Would you rather it be Ruby? Agent Danvers? Or perhaps that bothersome Luthor?”

The silence speaks volumes. But Reign always knew the weaknesses of her vessel as they had, begrudgingly, become her own.

“I thought as much.”

On this Earth, Reign will be known only as a killer - _Worldkiller_.

What they will never know is the way she protected each one of their lives while the heroes they painted in gold, modeled on pedestals and lust to become, slept.

_Reign._

Unlike the atmosphere of Earth, Space felt cool upon her skin, enough to raise small bumps and turn the beat of her vessel’s heart sluggish.

_Thank you._

For protecting _her_ child goes unspoken. But Reign has long learned how to interpret the silence just as she thinks – _knows_ – her vessel has learned in turn. The curtain was only ever so thick and while this blood lust belongs only to her, its weight will always be equally her vessel’s to bear.

“This world will face justice. But only by my hands.”

*

“M-m-mom?”

The curtain rustles.

Conformed to the nooks and crannies of her body, Reign feels the arms as they wrap about the midsection of her vessel. There are tears and choked sobs that reverberate in the walls of her chest as if Reign _could_ cry.

Ruby is safe and the world her vessel foolishly clings to is safe.

“Is Reign-“

She never should have stepped aside, parting the curtain to allow her vessel to step through and herself to plunge into the darkness. But a part of Reign feels a calm contentment. The world is far from cleansed, but Reign has time. Her vessel does not.

 “She’s still there, Rubes, baby.”

The tiny arms tighten.

“Thank you. For letting me have my mom back. Thank you.”

Reign does not cry. She has time – shroud in the darkness of the curtain and wrapped in this odd feeling of warmth. She has the time that slips illusively through the fingers of those she can never love. Because she is the Worldkiller and Worldkillers’ do not love nor are they weak. They are patient, waiting as time ages those they might know, to exact justice when the time is right.

When they believe all is safe.

Reign does not cry nor does she feel empty for she has time, slipping through her fingers like grains of sand in a desert that is endless. But _her_ child will one day cease and her vessel will ache the way Reign no longer can. Then, when the child, the lover and the friend have passed, will the curtain part again and Reign will be free.

Free to cleanse this pitiful world. 


	3. Eccedentesiast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Eccedentesiast:_ Someone who hides pain behind a smile

Nothing feels right.

The only reprieve is in the way the slabs of cement – eerily smooth to the touch and incapable of retaining any form of heat– press against her skin. Against the unsteady thrumming of blood through her veins – or at least what Sam _hopes_ is blood – it is the only salve. Not that it truly erases the pain that lingers like a constant companion; in fact, Sam thinks, it is likely more the stability it represents in her volatile life.

“How are you feeling today?”

Resisting the urge to itch her skin raw, Sam smiles, “Fine.”

The doctor scribbles something down. The sound of each pen stroke feels deafening as it amplifies in the room devoid of all comforts. The prison of her physical body, Sam thinks. At the very least, it is a great deal warmer than the prison of her mind.

“And your sleep?”

Erratic – virtually non-existent – Sam ruminates but never speaks, “Fine.”

More scribbles.

Sam has nearly perfected the sound each stroke makes – _reticent, circumspective_ – through all the internal _noise_. It makes her shift – shoulders back, posture straight – because it is all about appearances and Sam is nothing but excellent at appearances, perfected from years of surviving cut throat executives and narcissistic power-hungry savages.

“Hunger levels?”

“Well, it is certainly a step above hospital food,” Sam jokes, “So I certainly haven’t lost my appetite yet.”

What she doesn’t say is the way it feels like thousands of serrated blades moving down her throat and settles in her stomach like molten lava.

More scribbles. Sam thinks she hears _normal_ somewhere in the scratching strokes.

“It says here,” the doctor states, flipping through her ever-growing file, “That you have been exhibiting signs of withdrawal. Do you feel like you are withdrawing?”

“I live in a cement cube, doctor,” Sam chuckles, inflected with the same amount of mirth she vaguely recalls once feeling, “There isn’t really much to do.”

The days are like clockwork. Sam has it all mentally mapped and often while she stares vacantly at the ceiling of her cell, her salve pressing into her skin, Sam _sees_. She sees the stars light years away and the world that exists miles above her manmade tomb. Nothing about it feels comforting but at least, Sam thinks as she internally maps the intricate details of each star, it gives her mind something to ponder other than the way that it feels like something is clawing its way out, destroying every fiber of her human existence from the inside out.

If she ever truly was human, that is.

“I see,” the scribbling continues, “And it says here that you have turned down all visitation rights. Why is that?”

Like a noose tightening about her neck, Sam finds it difficult to breathe.

Visitation rights means Ruby, her sweet, wonderful daughter. Visitation rights means Lena, her one true friend that has been by her side since all this began. Visitation rights means Alex, her crux that makes something flutter in her chest and is likely watching with bated breath.

“Do you not want to see them?”

There is a gloating laughter that bubbles in her ear that makes Sam want to squirm. It is chilling to the bone and it makes her blood burn and her heart seize. _This_ is why Sam thinks she must not see them because _it_ makes her body tremble and her knees feel weak. _This_ blurs the edges of her vision and takes away the stars Sam has intricately mapped and dissolves any forms of comfort the walls of her prison provide.  _This_ delights in the blood that stains their hands - warm, tacky and unerasable – and it hungers for more.

“No. No, I do not.”


	4. Chapter 4

In the dead of night, Sam hears it.

At first, it sounds like honey, sweet and soothing. Under the thrumming of the blood in her veins, it utters promises of peace, serenity and renewal and in the shell of her ears Sam hears laughter; in the depth of her chest Sam feels overwhelming love; and on the inner lids of her eyes Sam sees a peacefulness she believed could never exist.

And then the gaps begin – periods Sam cannot recall – paired with a heavy exhaustion that seem to emanate from the marrow of her bones.

Jess wakes her, body slumped over the mounds of paper that litter her desk. Glassy eyed and disorientated, Sam hears it. This time, it sounds less like honey and more like venom, sharp and deadly. But, as the lids of her eyes fall with weighted exhaustion, draping her body slovenly about her office couch, Jess thoughtfully laying the throw over her frame, Sam forgets – forgets the dread it leaves in its wake, forgets the loathing hatred it arouses in her throat.

And when she wakes, alone and in the comforts of her own bed, Sam cannot breathe. Jess will assure her later that she had left of her own accord, but it is a lie, Sam thinks, that she cannot prove and the heinous cackle in the shell of her ear is no plausible rationalisation.

Not one Sam wants to accept, that is.

_Reign_ becomes the plausibility that Sam refuses to digest sitting in her glass prison. And yet, as she clutches her knees into her chest, eyes burrowing into the image of Ruby on the small desk, Sam _knows_. But what she does not know is _why_ : why, at times, it feels like _Reign_ is crying, broken hearted and disconcerted. And when _Reign_ is no more, what Sam does not know is why she suddenly feels so alone.

But as her makeshift family rejoices, Sam smiles. She accepts the embraces and accepts the love her daughter oozes, pressed into her side as if afraid to let go. Sam accepts the relieved sag in Lena’s shoulders and the awkward hug that follows. And as the tears burn in the back of her eyes, Sam exhales shakily, because Sam isn’t sure being one hundred percent human is what she is – _will ever be_.

Somewhere, Sam thinks, she hears it. Sweet like honey and soft like remorse, the thrumming in her blood that speaks of apologies and regret.


End file.
